Freshly Baked Modeling Challenge 19 – EGO Battery

[Wes Burke]

If you’ve been following along, we’re approaching the end of this modeling challenge series. This is the 19th challenge of 20; thanks for hanging in there with me! 

This week’s challenge aligns well with the Fundamentals of Mesh Modeling CORE course. 

Batteries take all sizes and shapes, but I think this one looks like something out of a sci-fi movie—a chunky style, with the classic 45-degree sci-fi angles. It should be super fun to model! 

[Omar Domenech]

Exactly the type of object the Hard Ops addon was made for. With that addon a 1 week modeling session turn into a 3 hour one.

[Leo]

OHHH YES.

Thats something for me. I’m in

[Leo]

I don’t think it will get any better with my current skill level. Some parts are not well developed or are missing but I have certainly invested over 20 hours but topology is still a big issue for me. Practice practice practice is the motto. That’s why it’s good that I did this here.

I’ve been looking at this battery for the last 5 days. I need to get it out of my head 🙂

But it’s good that it was “harder” (for me). After all, you only learn in these moments 

[Omar Domenech]

It’s quite good Leo, that’s a hard piece to model. You surely leveled up a bunch tackling this.

[Derek Chestnut]

I agree. This is a noteworthy piece. I particularly like the matte black material you used; it looks like you implemented a bump map node to give it some texture? Also, did you make use of a mirror modifier to get some of the work for free?

[Leo]

yes i used a mirror modifier and hardops. That helps a lot but I added a lot of vertices and cut the mesh manually. And as I said, I still don’t know how to build the mesh when I have so many outer curves and cuts BUT I have now bought an external course for it. I hope that I will know better soon. What I also find by far the most difficult is to estimate the proportions correctly. I look at the picture from the front, build the model and when I look at the picture from the side, the parts look a bit different in shape or longer.

but thanks for the kind words, though.

[Derek Chestnut]

how did you approach the overall design? did you try to model the entire thing as a single object, or did you model the body and shell components as separate pieces?

[Leo]

yes, I always try to make it as single object but here there are 3 objects (the main object, the back and the green underside)
I created the basic shape and then made the big cuts on the sides. I had mirrored the back with the front, I applied it, which was not very smart because I later saw that the back part is a bit narrower than the front. That’s why the back became an extra obect.
But that’s what I mean. Have a look at picture 1 and then picture 4, picture 5 because of the back. It looks very narrow in picture 1 but not in the others. So pictures can deceive you

[John McMahon]

When I first saw this challenge, I thought it would be too hard and take way longer than the weekend. Then I got inspired by Leo having a go, so I gave it a go. I was right that it was way hard and challenged me lots. Also took way longer than 1 weekend, lol. Having said all that I am very pleased with the result and that I did not have to google ‘How to’ anything!

I started with a single vertex, extruded and traced the outlines of an end. This defined the main shape to build the other main parts. Both Ends are single objects. The inside green bit is a single object. The little labels on the connection slots are made from 6 cylinders and 1 torus. The front piece is mostly 1 object. Other parts include 12 screw heads, 5 stickers, and 3 text objects.

I could read the 2 side stickers but could not read the inside pair. They have text in English, French and Spanish.

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